


And the Stars Stood Still

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Lyrium Addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 08:05:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3684576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The stars have always been a comfort to Cullen throughout his life, despite the trials he has suffered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the Stars Stood Still

He is a boy in Honnleath, sharing a cramped bedroom with his brother, and sometimes after his brother has fallen asleep Cullen slips out of bed and pads to the window, standing on tiptoe to look outside.  Late at night there are only scattered lamps burning in the village and it is easy to see the sky above the houses, the stars wheeling high overhead in brilliant white and blue.  He likes them though he does not know their names; he swears to find them out.  He goes back to bed, carrying the sight with him like a secret.

He is nervous, the night before his initiation into the templar order.  He has wanted this for such a long time, and he’s ready, or he thinks he is.  He is seventeen and he thinks he knows what lies ahead; if he’s honest with himself, he thinks he knows everything.  He climbs up to the top of the barracks and sits on the roof, swinging his feet over the edge, finding the points of the Sword of Mercy.  The moon is fierce and white and its light hits the spire of the Chantry, gleaming silver against the darkness, and the pride he feels in what he aims to do hits him just as fiercely.

He is a young templar in Kinloch Hold and his days are filled with patrols and training, and the mages around him make his senses thrum.  He likes some of them, the younger ones who remind him of his siblings, but he’s the newcomer here, and he’s anxious and awkward too much of the time.  He feels better on nights they put him on patrol at the top of the tower, where he doesn’t have to see the magic; one of his duties is to walk the roof, and he sees the stars overhead.  The Shadow is bright this time of night.  The lyrium in his veins hums and he almost thinks he could reach out and touch the glimmer above him, like he could do anything.

He makes the journey from Kinloch Hold to Kirkwall mostly in darkness.  It’s difficult to sleep during the day with the sun roaring through the thin walls of his tent or the curtains of cheap inn rooms, but it’s impossible at night.  At night the visions come back to him even through the shield of lyrium, the smell of blood, a glut of ruined flesh, a demon’s hands - or claws - or daggers - on his skin, the voices cooing filth and blasphemy with breathless need.  He can’t close his mind on it in the night and so he walks instead shadowed in starlight and moonlight.  He does not lift his head.  The stars are not enough.

He is a little older, bitterness choking his throat as he walks the streets of Kirkwall.  His sword arm barely keeps itself in check.  Cullen smells blood in the air even when there is nothing there, and lyrium bites at him in the quiet times.  He patrols at night and looks out the window into the distance, but the stars are faint and cold.  He remembers when they were white and clean, and he feels a shred of gratitude, thinking,  _There is something magic can never taint._  Yet Chaos catches his eye, and disquieted, he turns away.

He is tired and heartsick, the red explosion of the Chantry still searing his vision when he closes his eyes.  Meredith is petrified and the city lies in ruins and the templars look to him.  He gives them orders, scarcely knowing what he says, and when at last he limps back to his quarters, he closes the curtains.  Red still coats the city like a sickness and the stars do not come out that night.

He has finished his rounds and he stands at the ruined shell of the Chantry looking up at where sun once poured through stained glass.  Cullen stares up at the night sky and the names of the constellations - they should be there on his lips, but they're fuzzy, blurred somehow.  There’s that gnawing feeling and he realizes he's missed his next dose of lyrium, and his hands shake.  If only he could remember their names.... There’s one, far in the distance, he thinks he remembers.   _The Chained Man._   But he's overwhelmed by the hunger and the name slips away again.

He returns to Ferelden uncertain, cautiously hopeful, fighting back the old feelings of shame and steeling himself for a new life.  Voyager circles above him, the starlight gleaming off his new armor.  No sword and flame for him now, no Order pithing the man he used to be.  The philter in his pack feels heavier than it used to be, and he wonders if maybe, maybe he could endure.

The Breach scars the sky, its green light boiling forth to pollute the stars.  Cullen can only spy a few of them at nights when he walks the grounds at Haven.  Sometimes the Maiden shines through the green, and sometimes he runs into the Herald as he walks, stops to speak with her.  Her smile warms him despite the snow, despite the chill of lyrium’s lack, and his cautious hope begins to grow.

He stands and watches the horizon in the bitter cold, sick with dread.  Haven has fallen and they have barely fled with their lives.  But will she -- has she --  His fear grows and he tries to distract himself, names the Watchful Eye, sign of the Inquisition.  The Breach has closed but will the Inquisition falter now?  It worries him but his fear for her is greater.  He paces, his feet digging trenches in the snow, and when he sees a flicker of movement he is running toward her, lifting her into his arms beneath a new moon.  He will not let her down again.

The hunger tears at him and he does not know which is worse, the pain or the dreams, and often at night he lies in bed beneath the sundered roof, staring up into the darkness.  His fingers twist into the bedsheets and sweat clings to his hair and he only sees dragons up above, the High Dragon and the Dragon of Fire, baleful against the darkness.  He aches in the night, praying for the day, the Chant of Light dying on his lips.

She does not fear him and what he’s done, the man he was, and love flares within him like a talisman to keep him safe.  She stays the nights with him when she can and the dreams are a little better, a little easier to bear.  Instead of dragons he sees only Silence, bright and comforting, and when he wakes in the morning she’s there to kiss him.

He takes her with him to a peak just outside Skyhold where they can see the stars without the interference of lamps and candlelight, and he points out the Oak, steady, stalwart.  She calls it Andruil, tells him the Way of Three Trees;  _Vir Assan_ , fly straight and do not waver;  _Vir Bor’assan_ , bend but never break;  _Vir Adahlen_ , together we are stronger than the one.  And he thanks her for teaching him, takes her by the hand, asks her to marry him for together they are stronger than the one.  

Her joyful smile in the starlight stays with him always.

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a headcanon somewhere that Cullen likes to stargaze and that's why he never bothers repairing the holes in his roof. Took that idea and ran with it. I'm planning on developing the proposal in more detail in a different story from Namira Lavellan's POV but the details for this one came to me first :)


End file.
